


I Am Yours

by thecryoftheseagulls



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: (literally...because Anders is a mage...and also figuratively...), Anders Just Really Wants to Be Loved, Blow Jobs, Danarius is a (Dead) Asshole, Emotional Sex, Fenris and Anders in an alley (again), Fenris is a Power Bottom, Hand-holding During Sex is Apparently a Big Deal, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Temporary Amnesia, background f!Hawke/Isabela/Merrill, not Established Relationship but Established Fuck Buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:58:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5511029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders and Fenris have been lovers  for years, but it's never gone beyond sex. When Fenris finally kills his old master, they realize they have the chance to be something more. But Danarius has one last 'fuck you' left from beyond the grave, and the pair might be doomed before they start.</p><p>While not exactly Christmas-y, this was written for prettypriestess (mostlyandersbutttbh on tumblr) for the fenders secret santa exchange. Merry Christmas! I hope you don't mind that I gave the boys a bit of angst before their happy ending. <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettypriestess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettypriestess/gifts).



Fenris needs air. 

He stumbles out the doors of The Hanged Man, leaving the carnage behind him in search of air that doesn’t smell like blood and death. But Lowtown air stinks like sewage and piss and fish, always the scent of Maker-damned fish wafting up from the docks. He stumbles, bloodied gauntlets catching on the nearest wall, little bits of stone crumbling beneath their points, and it seems like his lungs aren’t working properly, because he takes great gulps of air into his lungs and still feels as though he cannot breathe.

His head swims. He sees Danarius’s hands sliding, cool enough to feel wet, over his skin, the magic in those fingertips sending little jolts of pain up his markings every time his fingers caressed a line of lyrium, Danarius’s voice - smug, pleased – murmuring, ‘Very good, Fenris.’ 

Leto, Varania called him, and yes, he can remember that – that was his name, once, before, but she said he had wanted this, fought for it, and Fenris feels dirty, everything he thought he knew about himself turned on its head. Magic has marked him, magic he chose, magic that stains everything he has ever been. He had his fingers around Danarius’s throat, his fingers _in_ Danarius’s throat; he snapped the man’s spine with his bare hand, so why is it, “The word is ‘master’” that he hears, again and again, instead of his own words. “You are no longer my master,” he had growled, and for a moment he’d felt free, but he keeps coming back to the fear, deep-deep-bone-deep-bend-your-knees-now-like-the-dog-you-are fear that gripped him at the first sight of the man he has run from for almost a decade. For a moment he hadn’t been sure that he would fight; perhaps he would bow and slaughter Hawke and everyone else he holds dear, as he had killed the Fog Warriors once at Danarius’s whim. 

Fenris snarls, curls his fingers into a fist and punches the wall beside him. He did not, but he could have. For all his talk of his freedom, to come so close to willingly surrendering it all over again, merely because he saw Danarius’s face and heard his voice… 

Fenris bends over and retches into the gutter, his battered knuckles throbbing. 

“I am no longer a slave,” he says, to the night air and the beggar huddled in a doorway four houses down. He straightens, spits to get the taste out of his mouth, and nods. He fought. Danarius is dead. He is…free.

Someone starts applauding in slow, measured claps behind him. Fenris turns, and Anders is there, draped casually against the wall, watching him with bright eyes. No, not bright, exactly. Triumphant. victorious… predatory.

“No, you’re not,” Anders says, and his voice is soft and warm, entirely at odds with the hunger in his eyes. The hunger Fenris knows well; they have fucked enough times over the years for that to be normal, but this gentleness in Anders’ voice is not. 

“You hear my diatribe against the evils of mages and magic and decide now is a good time to follow me into a dark alley?” Fenris rolls his eyes. Of course he did.

“We have had some spectacularly good times in alleys, if I recall correctly,” Anders says, pushing off the wall with one foot and sashaying towards him. “And, despite the aforementioned diatribe, your greatest enemy is dead, and I think...” he hooks his fingers in Fenris’s breastplate and tugs him away from the pile of vomit and deeper into the shadows. “…that is a perfect reason to celebrate.”

Fenris bats his hand away with a warning growl, but Anders, never one to be deterred, just grins at him and drops to his knees.

“See, you’ve killed one mage, and you’ve got another at your mercy here, so I’d say magic is serving you just fine.” Anders smooths his hands up Fenris’s thighs and works at his laces as he talks. Fenris can feel the heat of those fingers even through the fabric of his leggings and he inhales sharply.

He threads the gauntlets on his uninjured hand into Anders’ hair and tugs his head back ungently, which has the desired effect of a few loose strands falling into Anders’ face and the mage turning heavy-lidded eyes up at Fenris. Anders licks his pretty pink lips. 

“ _Venhedis_ ,” Fenris hisses, hard and straining against his leggings just from the press of Anders’ long fingers. Anders smirks, and opens his mouth to start talking again, but Fenris tightens his fingers in Anders’ hair and knocks Anders’ hand away with his other hand to free himself more quickly. “You and your incessant _talking_ ,” he grunts. “And you wonder why we always end up with my cock in your mouth.”

“You know you love my mou-” Anders quips, silenced quickly when Fenris takes himself in his fist and taps the head of his cock against Anders’ lips. Anders opens his mouth and _licks_ him. He tongues the underside of the glans, hollows his cheeks and swallows him down, and his mouth - _kaffas_ , his mouth is hot and wet and perfect, like always. Fenris falls back against the wall with a shudder. Everything is heightened with his cock down the mage’s throat – he can feel Anders’ silky hair in his fist, the coolness of the stone against his neck, the near-painful press of Anders’ fingers into his hip, the delicious pressure of Anders’ mouth around him most of all. Anders looks up at him, his eyes gone molten gold in the shadows and moonlight, with some kind of intensity Fenris can only guess at, because who can tell why the mage does anything?

The reality of the situation hits Fenris in a rush. He isn’t hiding anymore, he’s fucking a mage’s throat with short, controlled thrusts of his hips only a stone’s throw away from the tavern where his master’s corpse grows cold, and he laughs, sudden and short. 

“Free,” he murmurs, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do with that, but suddenly he realizes he can do _anything_ , anything at all, and he laughs again, fingers gentling in Anders’ hair and cupping the back of his head.

Anders hums around him, sending shivers up Fenris’s spine. He looks down to find Anders smiling. Anders pulls off Fenris’s cock with a wet pop and Fenris growls at the loss of the warmth of his mouth, but the grin on Anders’ face is wide and his eyes are warm and fond. He nuzzles forward and tugs Fenris’s leggings down further to kiss the inside of his hipbone, though he stops after a minute because he can’t stop smiling and just rests his forehead there against Fenris’s hip.

It does something to him, the sight of that expression on Anders’ face, all happiness and affection that make the shadows under Anders’ eyes and the lines around his mouth all but disappear. Fenris feels his chest lighten, expand. He touches Anders’ cheek with the back of his gauntlet, leaving a smear of red behind, and Anders turns his face towards him.

“Anders…” he starts, perplexed by his own reaction.

“Shh…” Anders murmurs. “Let me take care of you, Fenris.”

Fenris studies him for a moment and then nods, and Anders smiles again. He presses kisses along the length of his cock, wraps clever fingers around the base, and suckles at the head, teasing, just enough to make Fenris growl and squirm. Just as Fenris is about to tighten his fingers in Anders’ hair and demand he get on with it, Anders takes his cock down his throat. Fenris closes his eyes and slumps back against cool stone, the muscles in his thighs and stomach clenching. Anders bobs up and down, his hand a steady counterpart to his mouth, and they have done this so often that the way Anders touches him is perfect, almost better because it is familiar and reassuring and _good_ in the face of a future Fenris realizes he has never given thought to. Anders is making greedy noises and doing things with his tongue that leave Fenris shaking with pleasure. He looks down and Anders is watching him, his eyes never leaving Fenris’s face.

“Anders,” Fenris murmurs again, the name catching in his too-full chest and tripping its way out of his mouth, and Anders moans when he hears it. He lets go of Fenris’s cock and devours him to the hilt, till his nose brushes Fenris’s dark curls. “Fasta vass,” Fenris snarls, bucking his hips as Anders pulls back only to swallow him again. Anders reaches up, blindly, for the hand that is not already in his hair, the one Fenris has braced himself against the wall with. He drags his hand down Fenris’s vambrace and tugs his arm close, and then when he can reach Fenris’s gauntlet he threads their fingers together, heedless of the blood stains or the sharp metal digging into his hand.

And Fenris is shaking apart as Anders sucks fervently at his cock, but Anders holding his _hand_ is something new. It sends a sharp stab of pain through him, from knuckles Fenris thinks might be broken, but he barely registers the pain because when he grips Anders’ hand back, Anders’ bright eyes turn feverish. Anders groans eagerly, a line of spit dripping down his stubbled chin and still, that intense eye contact, and Fenris is tight and aching, heat pooling low in his body and he wants the mage, wants, wants, _wants_ , with a ferocity that rips through him and sends him stumbling back half a step with nowhere left to go. Anders’ mouth works his cock and Fenris’s fingers are anchored in Anders’ hair and hand, but it’s not enough, those three small points of contact, and Anders must sense it too because he shifts forward and presses as close to Fenris as the position will allow, tugging so that their joined hands rest on his shoulder. 

Fenris growls his name, again, and Anders whines, his eyes pleading and Fenris says, “Yes,” breathes the word without understanding what he’s agreeing to, but he is free and he can do what he wants and what he wants is to give Anders anything he asks of him. Anders closes his eyes, looking blissful, and it pleases him so much that Fenris says it again. “Yes.” 

He shudders, close, so close that every brush of Anders’ tongue feels like it might send him over the edge, but he struggles for lucidity, because he was going to say something else, he was going to say…he doesn’t know why the sudden need to speak _these_ words now, and they terrify him because they are true, but it’s his choice, it’s Fenris’s choice. He waits till Anders opens his eyes and focuses on him again, and then he whispers, “I am yours.”

Anders draws in a surprised breath and Fenris fears he might choke, but then he’s moaning and sucking at Fenris’s cock with renewed fervor and Fenris’s whole body tenses. He doesn’t even have time to warn Anders; he just comes with a strangled moan, pleasure broad and sweeping in contrast to the tight uncomfortable fear in him from what he has just said. But Anders makes enthusiastic noises and holds his hand tighter, nurses him through the aftershocks with little licks and nuzzles, and Fenris could almost forget he said anything. He slides down the wall to the ground with a soft groan. 

Anders meets him there before he’s even settled, burrowing in under his chin, kissing his neck, pressing eager against him, mumbling a stream of nonsense that Fenris has to strain to make sense of.

“…fuck. Fuck, Fenris, you can’t just…Fuck, sweetheart, I…”

“You are talking already.” Fenris represses a smile.

“No shit.” Anders pulls back and stares at him with wide eyes, frames his face with both hands and kisses him deeply.

Fenris pulls one of Anders’ hands away gently and frowns at the angry red scrapes his gauntlets have left against Anders’ skin. Anders looks down. His hand glows blue briefly with a flash of healing magic that leaves Fenris’s markings pulsing. 

“Good as new,” Anders murmurs, smiling at him.

“My hand.” Fenris remembers. He flexes his fingers and hisses with pain.

“Let me see.” Anders reaches out, pulls off Fenris’s gauntlet. Fenris lets him turn his hand over and inspect his bloodied knuckles. His middle finger is definitely broken. With a tsk, Anders looks up. “May I?” Fenris nods, and Anders heals him easily. “There.”

“Anders, I...” Fenris stops because he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to take it back, and he doesn’t _want_ to take it back, and that frightens him.

Anders considers him for a moment, probably reading the fear on his face because he’s damned good at reading everything, but Fenris hopes he reads the want too. _Please believe me._

“Do you want to be alone tonight?” Anders asks softly.

Fenris thinks about his cold, dark mansion, about the prospect of cleaning his master’s blood from his armor alone and worrying about what in the void has come over him regarding Anders. He shakes his head.

“Then I’ll come back to the mansion with you. It’s been…an emotional night, sweetheart. You don’t have to figure anything out right now.”

“Thank you,” Fenris whispers, and the two words seem incredibly inadequate for the tangle of emotions inside him.


	2. Like We're Oceans Apart

They are awakened rather rudely mid-morning by Nyah Hawke and her lovers banging into Fenris’s bedroom. Isabela probably picked the lock on the outside door when no one answered. 

“Oh Fenriiis, seen your lover boy?” Isabela calls.

Fenris drops his sword back on the floor with a thump and growls something in sleep-roughened Tevene that Anders is pretty sure insults all three of the women’s mothers at once. His hair sticks up in the back from contact with his pillow, and Anders is completely distracted from their unwanted visitors by the delightful sight of Fenris with bed hair. 

“Bit taller than you, nice hair, sinfully talented sparkly fingers?” Isabela presses, and Anders sits up with a groan, wrapping an arm around Fenris from behind. To his surprise, Fenris leans into him instead of shifting away.

“What could possibly be so important that you had to hunt me down at Fenris’s, Hawke?”

“It wasn’t hunting, really,” Merrill says, far too cheerful given the time of day. “I didn’t see you leave last night, but Hawke said you disappeared right after Fenris did, so Isabela thought we should check here first, and it’s hardly out of the way, so here we are. And wouldn’t you know it, there _you_ are!” 

“I need your magical opinion on some greatsword Xenon says I’ll want, Anders,” Hawke says, folding her arms over her chest, which just serves to emphasize the fact that her biceps are the size of Anders’ thighs. Meanwhile, Isabela leers openly at Anders in Fenris’s bed, and Anders is pretty sure she’s about to start gesturing lewdly.

“Now?” he asks quickly, to head Isabela off. 

“Now’s as good a time as any. Here you are, obviously awake. The sun is shining. It’s a beautiful day. Oh, and Xenon says he’s got another prospective buyer, so if I don’t go down there today he’s going to sell it to somebody else,” Hawke says.

Anders groans. He shoots Fenris a look. 

Still glowering at the three of them, Fenris takes a moment and then shrugs, and Anders grudgingly agrees.

“Great!” Hawke says, clapping her hands together and beaming. “Come on, sweet cheeks, let’s let the boys get themselves together,” Hawke tosses Isabela over one shoulder easily and offers Merrill her hand. 

“Absolutely no fun at all,” Isabela pouts, propping herself up on Hawke’s shoulder to stare at both of them, as if they might start making out the second she looks away, until Hawke turns the corner.

Anders kisses Fenris’s neck and drags himself off the bed with a sigh.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he says when they’re gone, grabbing his coat off a chair and shrugging into it. 

Fenris grunts. “If you truly believe they did not know we’ve been fucking for years, I see little hope for you.”

“Hey!” Anders balls up Fenris's tunic and tosses it at his face.

Fenris snags it out of the air and smiles sleepily at him before he pulls it over his head. Dressed, Anders comes over to help Fenris into his armor.

“I am…glad you stayed last night,” Fenris says, as Anders reaches around him to buckle his breastplate into place. Anders kisses his cheek, and Fenris catches his hand when he goes to step away. “I do not…” he frowns. “I’m not sure how to feel, but I want…ugh. Can we talk after Hawke’s errand is done?”

Anders smiles so widely it feels like his cheeks might split. “Of course. Of course, whatever you need, Fenris.”

Fenris leans up to kiss him gently. “Thank you.”

***

They are in the middle of the Lowtown market when Fenris’s markings suddenly flare up brighter than Anders has ever seen, a brilliant white-blue that lights his body with an eerie glow. And worse, Fenris starts screaming – Fenris, who fights almost silently except for the occasional grunt of effort or calm observation on the progress of the battle; Fenris, whom Anders has to check thoroughly after each fight because he never makes a noise of pain, ever. Anders doesn’t know what’s happening. He can feel a wild rush of magic, but it seems to be coming from Fenris himself, flaring up along his markings and then feeding back into them in a continual loop that sends Fenris’s face contorting in agony. Fenris stumbles, goes to his knees, and Anders grabs for him, but he’s too slow, Hawke and Isabela and Merrill all suddenly in his way, and Fenris doesn’t stop screaming until he collapses, unconscious, in the dirt.

“Let him breathe!” Anders cries, pushing Hawke and Isabela aside to kneel beside Fenris’s prone body. Merrill has her hand already on his forehead and Anders snarls, “Don’t touch him!” because the last thing Fenris would want is the blood mage’s hands on him. That’s the reason he tells himself, at least, but the sight of Fenris crying out in pain and crumpling in the street for no bloody reason has Anders’ insides twisting. He’s angry and defensive and battling the urge to shout at all three of them until they leave him and Fenris alone, and that’s stupid, because Fenris isn’t his to protect and take care of. Or maybe he is? After what Fenris said last night, Anders doesn’t know what they are, he just knows he’s panicking. 

He lifts Fenris’s head gently into his lap and places his palms on either side of Fenris’s face as Hawke wraps an arm around a hurt-looking Merrill and glares at him. Anders ignores them, grimacing. There are no visible injuries on Fenris’s body, aside from an unusual tension in his body and the glow of his lyrium markings, fainter now.

“Forgive me, sweetheart, for not asking you about this first,” Anders murmurs before he sends a questioning pulse of magic through Fenris’s body. He’s not hurt, not anywhere, but Anders can feel some kind of dark spell preying on his body – blood magic, he thinks by the slippery feel of it, and it’s tied to the lyrium somehow. The magic feels old, like it’s been part of Fenris for some time, but if that’s the case Anders has no idea what activated it, or what the spell’s purpose is. It seems most concentrated in the lyrium lines up the back of Fenris’s neck, but as Anders probes, the foreign magic draws into itself and then disappears entirely. Fenris slumps against the ground, all the tension draining from his body as the magic vanishes and his markings dim.

Anders lets a simple healing spell wash over Fenris just in case, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else to do. He bends at the waist and kisses Fenris’s forehead. 

“I don’t know what the fuck that was about, love, but you can wake up anytime,” he whispers, tears prickling at his eyes.

“Anders? Is he okay?” Hawke squats beside him, her armor jingling as she moves. 

“I…I don’t know. There’s nothing _wrong_ with him, technically.” Anders’ voice shakes. Hawke grips his shoulder in her version of a ‘gentle’ reassuring squeeze, and Anders winces.

“Well, we can’t just leave him in the street. Come on, let’s take him to Varric’s.” She slides her arms under Fenris’s knees and shoulders and makes to stand.

“I can carry him!” Anders grabs at her arm to stop her, but Hawke just gives him a pitying glance and looks from Fenris’s muscle-bound frame to Anders’ scrawny one with a shake of her head. Anders growls. “Fine, but…gently.”

“Don’t you worry, Anders, I’ve got your boyfriend.” Hawke winks, standing as easily as if Fenris weighs nothing.

Isabela gives a more subdued version of her usual laugh and threads her arm through Merrill’s with a, “Come along, kitten, I want to see if Anders will give us the dirty details while we wait for Fenris to wake up.”

***

“For the last time,” Anders says in exasperation, “I’m not telling you anything more until Fenris wakes up. I don’t know what he’s comfortable with, and he probably doesn’t give a shit, but we haven’t – we were going to-” he throws up his hands. “The point is, we’re not officially together. At the moment. I don’t know what more you want from me.”

“She wants the juicy details about the banging,” Hawke calls, her booted feet up on Varric’s table. Anders shifts closer to Fenris’s side on Varric’s bed and glares around the corner at her. Hawke laughs. “Not me! You two can keep it in your pants as far as I’m concerned.”

“Please,” Varric mutters fervently from the head of the table. “Although dates…times…who made the first move…those would be appreciated.”

“How about it, Sparkle-Fingers?” Isabela leans forward, one hand stacked on top of the other on one of the short bedposts at the end of the bed, which makes her cleavage even more noticeable than usual.

“ _NO_ ,” Anders-Justice says, their voice going deep, their eyes turning blue.

“Ugh, go away, Justice,” Isabela pouts, leaning back.

Varric’s bed shifts. 

“Master?” Fenris asks, his voice small.

“Oh, thank the Maker, Fenris,” Anders twists quickly, Justice fading back away. Fenris blinks at him slowly, his green eyes large and confused and…afraid? Raising the back of a hand to Fenris’s forehead, Anders asks gently, “How do you feel?”

Fenris flinches away from the touch and sits up, holding himself carefully, his shoulders rounded. He looks down at his hands in his lap and his glance skitters over Hawke and the others, who gather around the foot of the bed. 

“Gave us a bit of a scare there, Elf,” Varric says.

“Fenris?” Anders tries again.

Fenris swallows. “Where is Master Danarius?”

An uncomfortable silence falls. The question makes Anders’s stomach feel hollow, empty, and he reaches out to Fenris, second-guesses the decision, and drops his hands into his lap. 

“Danarius is dead, Fenris,” Anders says. “You killed him yourself.”

Fenris looks at him quickly, and this time Anders is sure he sees fear in his eyes. Just as quickly, Fenris looks down, focusing his gaze on Anders’ collarbone instead of meeting his eyes.

“Forgive me. I do not understand,” Fenris says.

“Your sister set us up? Varania? Then the bastard tried to take you back to Tevinter, so we killed him. And his goons.” Hawke supplies helpfully, stepping forward.

Fenris looks at her and looks down again, his obvious confusion hidden quickly behind a blank look.

Anders bites his lip as everyone exchanges puzzled glances. He focuses on his patient, pushing aside a quickly-rising fear and a sense of incredible _wrongness_ at seeing Fenris so timid.

“Fenris, I am going to use magic on you just to check on how you are, all right? Your markings flared up and you passed out in the street a little bit ago. You seemed fine, but I’m going to check again.”

Fenris doesn’t look at him, but he does give a small nod, after a pause. Anders put his fingers under Fenris’s chin. 

“Look at me, please?” he murmurs. Fenris visibly swallows but obeys.

Reaching out with a small tendril of his magic, Anders can still vaguely sense ill intent, like a residue left over Fenris’s markings by the spell, but the spell itself doesn’t seem to be present anymore, and physically Fenris is completely fine. He draws the magic back.

“Does your head hurt?” he asks.

Fenris shakes his head mutely.

“No dizziness, tiredness, ringing in your ears?”

Fenris shakes his head again.

Anders sighs. “Well, you’re not concussed, so that’s something. You seem perfectly healthy.”

There’s a soft murmur from the group, a collective relieved sigh. 

Then Fenris says, cautiously, “I feel fine, Master,” and everyone goes still again.

Horror claws its way out of Anders’ throat. 

“What did you call me?” he chokes out.

Fenris looks alarmed. “I apologize,” he says quickly. “Is that not correct?”

Anders says, “What. I, I, I don’t. Fenris.” He stares at Fenris, healer’s calm lost, his heart thumping in his chest. He’s suddenly very, very warm, heat crawling up from the small of his back, mouth dry.

Varric steps to his side and puts a solid hand on Anders’ arm, but that doesn’t do anything to help at all.

“Do you know who we are, Fenris?” Varric asks, calm.

Fenris looks around at them all, and then he shakes his head.

Anders makes a wounded noise and covers his mouth with his hand. He shakes.

“What, um, do you remember?” Varric presses.

“I stood guard over Master Danarius in Minrathous while we attended the Games. We had just returned to the estate, and…” Fenris pauses. “And gone to rest. I must have fallen asleep.”

Anders feels sick, but a convoluted kind of understanding is starting to click into place. Old blood magic, memory loss…

“Did something happen at the Games, Fenris?” he blurts. “Some reason for Danarius to suspect you might…harm him?”

Fenris looks horrified. “No, I would never harm Master Danarius,” he says swiftly. Anders rubs at his forehead, tries to calm himself, to figure this out. He is the healer, he should be considering Fenris’s wellbeing. But there’s a voice screaming in his head (and it’s not the one he’s used to) about how close he was to having what he has wanted for so very, very long, and now the man he loves doesn’t even _recognize_ him.

Fenris adds, “There were the usual…inflammatory speeches, at the Games. Insurrectionists encouraging the slaves to rise against their masters in their final moments before the lions tore them apart. It is not out of the ordinary.”

Blood magic, memory loss…it sounds like a magical failsafe in case Fenris ever thought to harm his master. Or at the very least, a twisted revenge in the event of his death, perhaps to be used as a threat to hold over Fenris’s head if Danarius ever expected revolt from him. It has been about twelve hours since Fenris ripped Danarius’s throat out, which is a reasonable period of time for any spell intended to activate on his death to take effect.

Anders snarls savagely, “I am going to resurrect that bastard so Justice and I can liquefy his insides.”

Everyone stares at him, Fenris included, his green eyes round.

“Care to share with the class, Blondie?” Varric arches a brow.

Anders explains the theory, and when he’s done, Hawke whistles. 

“That’s a new low,” she says, folding her arms and sizing Fenris up with a glance. Fenris curls up with his knees to his chest, no longer making any attempt to disguise his alarm.

“Fucking blood mages,” Anders growls. Isabela and Hawke give the usual affronted protests and Isabela wraps an arm around Merrill’s shoulders defensively.

“Right, well, to the matter at hand, perhaps it would be better not to talk about the Elf as if he’s not here,” Varric says dryly. “Maybe tell him a little bit about what’s happened?”

Hawke gives Anders a pointed look. 

Anders drags his fingers through his hair. “Fenris, you’re not a slave anymore. It’s 9:37 Dragon; it’s been, what, ten years now? since you escaped from Danarius. You’ve been running from him ever since, though you settled here in Kirkwall, in the Free Marches, to wait him out six years ago. Last night he finally showed up, and you killed him.” He tucks some white hair behind a pointed ear. “You’re free, sweetheart.” Fenris stares at his hand as Anders pulls it back, and Anders grimaces. “Sorry,” he mumbles, his shoulders slumping. 

He feels lost. He’s used to antagonistic Fenris, had only just gotten through to a gentler Fenris, and now…this submissive, terrified version is unsettling and _wrong_. 

“Then…” Fenris wets his lips and looks at Anders. He whispers, “Who are you?”

Hawke seems to decide the question is for all of them, because she says, “We’re your friends, Fenris. I’m Hawke, and this is Isabela, and Merrill, and Varric, and Anders.” She points them out in turn. “Don’t worry, there won’t be a test.” She quirks a smile.

“You are not my master,” Fenris says slowly, still looking at Anders. “…Anders.” He tries the name out on his tongue.

“No, Fenris, you don’t have a master,” Anders says. Fenris tilts his head, a question still in his eyes.

“Anders, is there a way to fix this?” Hawke asks, before Anders can ask Fenris what it is. 

“I don’t know,” Anders says. “The spell that caused it is gone. I don’t know anything about magic that takes memories away. That’s way, way outside my area of expertise. And if…” his throat closes up. “If this is the spell Danarius used to remove Fenris’s memories after the lyrium procedure, it hasn’t ever shown any signs of lifting before. Merrill might…Merrill might have a better idea than I do.”

Varric’s hand finally falls away. He says, “I think maybe Blondie and the Elf need a moment. Why don’t we all go get some drinks?”

Anders isn’t entirely focused as Varric bustles everyone out of his suite, too distracted by Fenris’s intent gaze and a sensation that he is drowning, the last of his ties to…anything beyond his cause _(a destroyed underground, mages hunted and dying, so many of his friends dead, the threat of an Exalted March hanging over everything, and always Justice demanding **NO MORE** )_ fading away above a surface he can no longer reach. 

He doesn’t realize they’ve all gone until Fenris slowly drops his knees to sit cross-legged and says, “I don’t understand. Why would I run away from Master Danarius? Why would I… _kill_ him?” He looks perplexed. “I never wanted to be free. I was Master Danarius’s most prized possession – I lived far better with him than I would have as a free elf.”

Anders gives a quiet sigh and settles fully onto the bed, facing Fenris with his legs curled underneath him. 

“You got separated because of a Qunari attack, and then you met some people who showed you what it was like to be free,” he says. “And when Danarius came back for you, you decided not to go with him.” It’s an abbreviated version of the tale, but he doesn’t think Fenris needs to hear all the details. Not now.

Fenris frowns. He picks at the blankets beneath him, and then stills when he realizes what he is doing and rests his hands in his lap instead.

“9:37,” he says pensively. “Then…you and I…?”

Anders rubs at the back of his neck. “We were lovers, Fenris. Are – are lovers.”

“You are a mage,” Fenris objects, shaking his head. “Why would you – with me?”

“I’m not some grand magister. I’m an apostate who lives in the sewers to hide from the templars, and you’re an elf squatting in one of Danarius’s abandoned mansions while you hide – hid – from him. We’re really very similar.” Anders smiles, though the expression slips at Fenris’s skeptical look. “Look. We’re not really…together, exactly. We just fuck sometimes.”

Fenris narrows his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

Anders blinks, startled. Fenris looks down and away, the very tips of his ears flushing red. Not sure what to say to _that_ , Anders just stares at him, flummoxed.

“You…do not look at me as if I mean nothing to you,” Fenris says.

“Yeah, well,” Anders laughs awkwardly. He looks away and rubs his neck again. “That’s me, always getting my heart involved where it shouldn’t be.” Fenris seems to have scooted forward when he looks back, because Anders swears he is closer than he was before.

“Shouldn’t be?” Fenris’s voice is low.

Anders gulps. “I don’t _know_. Probably. We were going to have a talk as soon as we finished an errand for Hawke, and then you collapsed in the street because of fucking blood magic, so I don’t know what you were going to say, or where we stand, exactly.” Fenris gives him a skeptical look, brows lifting slightly, the look he gives when he knows Anders isn’t telling him something. “Fine. We never talked about anything more until last night, after you ripped Danarius’s throat out, when you came down my throat and said, and I quote, ‘I am yours’.” Anders softens at the frown on Fenris’s face. He says gently, “Trust me, I’d like to know exactly what you meant by that as much as anyone.”

“The phrasing doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” Fenris says dryly. 

Anders flushes. “You’re pretty averse to belonging to anyone these days, in any sense of the word.”

“Hm,” Fenris says. He studies Anders, really studies him for the first time since he woke up. “You are…” he sucks in a breath. “Forgive me if I find myself doubtful.”

Anders blushes harder, nothing about this conversation going the way he expected. Although he isn’t sure what he expected from a talk about six years of a not-relationship which his lover doesn’t remember.

The silence that falls is strained, and Anders risks a look at Fenris’s face only to find him frowning faintly and staring at his hands.

“Fenris?” Anders touches his knee gently.

“I would like to see the body,” Fenris says quietly. “If that would be permitted.”

It takes Anders a moment to figure out what body Fenris is talking about.

“Oh,” he says, very softly. “Yes, of course. I, um, don’t actually know what Hawke did with it. We were kind of busy. But we can ask her, definitely.”

“May we go now?” Fenris has gone back to not meeting his eyes.

Anders sighs and withdraws his hand. “Yes, of course,” he repeats. He climbs off the bed and waits as Fenris does the same. Fenris unfolds himself so gracefully that Anders has to fight not to stare. Andraste’s tits, he is a besotted fool. A ridiculous, unhappy, doomed idiot. “Um.” Anders taps the hilt of the gigantic sword Hawke propped against the wall. “This is yours - you’ll probably want it.”

Fenris approaches warily and takes the blade, hefting it experimentally in his hand. The weight of it seems to please him, because there’s a flicker of emotion behind his eyes and he sheathes it on his back easily. Anders’s picks up his own weapon, and his fingers worry at the leather-wrapped grip of his staff while he waits. Then Fenris is standing in front of him, his eyes on the ground. He lifts his gaze to Anders’ hand and then dares a peek at his face.

“Anders?” The name is tentative, but with an undercurrent of longing that Anders has never heard in Fenris’s voice.

“Yes?” he whispers.

Fenris’s hands clench at his sides, like he’s holding himself back. “I…nothing. We should move on.”

Anders’ eyes sting as he nods, and he hates how selfish his own pitiful unhappiness is in the face of all that Danarius has taken from Fenris, again.


	3. Demons That We Can't Stand

Squatting in the sewers, Fenris ignores the stench of the pile of dead bodies (it figured the ‘businessmen’ Varric hired for body disposal would just toss them down here, with the rest of the refuse) to inspect Danarius’s corpse. He has been still so long that Anders is beginning to become alarmed. He exchanges looks with Hawke, who accompanied them down here at Varric’s direction, but sent Merrill away with Isabela to research how to fix this. 

Anders drops the arm he was covering his nose and mouth with and says quietly, “Fenris?” He touches Fenris’s shoulder.

“I snapped his spine,” Fenris says, his fingers hovering over the torn greying flesh. It is fairly clear that this is his handiwork, to anyone who knows about Fenris’s abilities. Fenris curls his fingers and moves his hand to Danarius’s face, tracing the wrinkles around the dead magister’s eyes, touching the hair at his temples. “His hair was only just starting to turn grey,” Fenris murmurs. 

Danarius’s eyes have clouded over in death, but they are still open, and Fenris goes to shut them and finds he cannot, rigor mortis having set in too far. He hisses in frustration and tries and fails again. Rising, Fenris shakes his head violently and moves away, first at a walk, then at a run. He looks ill. 

Anders turns to Hawke, who rolls her eyes and shoves him after Fenris. 

“Go on, you idiot,” she says. “It’s obvious you’re the person he needs. Let me know if I can do anything, all right? I’ll see what ideas Merrill can come up with.”

Anders doesn’t have much time to do anything but nod and shoot her a grateful look before he has to hurry after Fenris, at risk of losing him in the tunnels.

But Fenris doesn’t go far. He stops at the far side of a dead end, and Anders calls out his name as he jogs after him. Fenris doesn’t react. He collapses against a wall, and when Anders gets close enough, he can see Fenris trembling from head to toe.

“Fenris,” Anders says again, but Fenris shakes his head and folds in on himself further, not looking at him.

Anders does the only thing he can think of, and wraps his arms around him, tucking him against his chest. 

“Shh, sweetheart, I’ve got you, I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”

“I killed him,” Fenris chokes out. When Anders agrees, Fenris shoves at his chest, though not with enough force to actually push him away. “You don’t understand!” he cries out. “He was – he was my _Master_ , and I killed him.” 

“I do, Fenris. I do understand. I know he was…” Anders stops, not sure he can bring himself to actually vocalize what Danarius had implied. 

“I loved him!” Fenris says, despairing, succeeding in pushing Anders away this time. His green eyes are wild, and he’s breathing hard. “I loved him,” he repeats, quieter. He sinks to the ground and puts his head in his hands.

“Yes,” Anders says softly. They had never talked about it, but Anders had suspected something of the sort. He drops to his knees in front of Fenris. “But you have _always_ deserved better, Fenris. Better than his lies. Better than the lyrium he poured into your body, and the twisted affection he manipulated you into having for him.”

“What, like you?” Fenris sneers. “Another mage who ‘cares’ for me?”

Anders wraps his arms around himself.

“No, love,” he says quietly. “You’ve always deserved better than me, too.”

Fenris stares at him, a tumult of emotion in his eyes. Anders reads anguish and confusion and despair, but he doesn’t register the desire running underneath it all until Fenris lunges forward and captures Anders’ lips with his.

The kiss is hard. Fenris grabs onto Anders’ shoulder with one gauntleted hand, digging in until he draws blood, and Anders tries to back away, to stop this, but Fenris’s hand holds him steady, so that all Anders can do is gasp under the onslaught of Fenris’s lips. With a growl, Fenris takes advantage of his parted lips to thrust his tongue into Anders’ mouth. 

And Anders melts forward. His hands reach for Fenris’s face, grasp at his hair. Long ago he decided Fenris could have whatever he wanted from him, and memories or no, that holds true. Anders is not strong enough to pretend he doesn’t want him, not with Fenris kissing him like this - hot, angry, demanding. He moans loudly, touching his tongue to Fenris’s when Fenris pulls back, and he can feel an answering tremor go through Fenris’s body, feel the sharp metal in his shoulder dig sharper.

Then Fenris draws back, letting go of Anders so abruptly it sends him falling backwards onto his ass with a yelp. He presses a hand to his bleeding shoulder.

Fenris shakes his head, looking panicked by what he has just done, and Anders aches. He reaches for him with both hands, but Fenris catches sight of the blood on Anders’ palm and catches his wrist.

“I hurt you,” he says, his voice rough.

“It’s nothing,” Anders says, because it isn’t, not with his magic. 

Fenris shifts to his knees quickly, his eyes going to Anders’ shoulder.

“Forgive me, Anders, I did not mean…” he drops his eyes to the ground and releases Anders, shoulders bowing.

“It’s okay,” Anders says. “Fenris. Please. Look at me.” When Fenris reluctantly does, he wipes the blood on his hand against his coat and says, “Watch.” He presses a palm full of healing magic to his shoulder and then pulls his coat and shirt aside so Fenris can see the now-unbroken skin. “See? Healer.”

Fenris practically sags with relief.

Anders reaches out to grip Fenris’s shoulders. “I’m not him, Fenris,” he says softly. “And I know you don’t remember why you left right now, but trust me when I tell you, it was not a mistake.” He cups Fenris’s cheek, his voice thick. “You’re free now, do you hear me? Your life is your own. He doesn’t own you anymore.”

Fenris stares at him, conflicted, lost.

“Free…” he echoes, dully. “I don’t – I don’t know what to do with freedom.”

Anders smiles, brushing his thumb over Fenris’s cheekbone. “Nobody really does, not at first. It’s all pretty overwhelming. I can help you with that, at least until we get your memories back. Longer, if you want. That is…if you want my help at all. I know – with me being a mage, and you not remembering anything we’ve done over the past six years – you don’t have any reason to trust me, or probably even like me. So it’s your choice. Your life. But I’m not going anywhere, if you want me.”

Fenris frowns. “Why would I not like you?”

“Because you’re Fenris – you make mage-hating look like an _art_. And not only am I a mage, but I’m also a very opinionated mage that never shuts up. We have fundamental differences of opinions. Yes, mages are dangerous, blah blah, but I don’t think we should be locked up for it, and you do.” Anders gives him a funny look. “This is the part where you call us power-mad despots and start to go glow-y.”

Fenris keeps frowning.

“Or…not.” Anders blinks. “Maker, that’s odd.”

“Mages are…powerful,” Fenris says carefully. “I have seen this lead to many abuses. But I have never – it is how things are.”

“In Tevinter,” Anders says with a sigh. “Here, we’re just the Chantry’s chattel, ripped away from our families as children as soon as our magic manifests and locked away, never allowed love or freedom or happiness. Taught our magic makes us cursed, an affront to the Maker.”

“I have never heard anyone speak of magic as a curse.” Fenris looks baffled.

“Welcome to the Free Marches,” Anders says with a grimace. 

He stands and offers Fenris his hand.

“You don’t have to decide anything right now. Come on, I’ll show you where you’ve been living.”

Fenris looks between the hand and Anders’ face, and then he takes it, murmuring acquiescence.

***

“This is…mine?” Fenris walks slowly around his bedroom, touching things occasionally. 

“All yours,” Anders says. “Not exactly legally, but that’s hardly relevant.”

Fenris looks at him, cocking an eyebrow. He lifts the bottle of sword oil from the mantel of the fireplace and smells it before putting it back.

“It is strange to recognize your own presence in a place you cannot remember,” Fenris says quietly. “Vintages of wines I enjoy, tools I have always used to tend my armor and equipment… but why are there books?”

“You’ve been learning how to read,” Anders says. “Hawke’s been helping you, mostly. I offered, but…” he shrugs.

Fenris picks up one of the books on the table near his armchair and thumbs through it. His eyes widen and he fumbles, nearly dropping the book.

“I – I can understand most of this,” he says. He looks back to Anders with some anger and shakes the volume at him. “How is it I can remember _reading lessons_ , but not any specifics of the last fifteen years of my life?”

Anders steps forward and takes the book gently. “Memory is a funny thing. That’s good, though. If you can remember this, maybe it won’t be as hard as I fear to get the rest back.”

“Pfaugh.” Fenris stalks away. He considers the bed for a moment, face impassive.

Anders looks out at the window at the darkened sky and sighs.

“I should go,” he says. “Would you like me to come by in the morning? We can talk. Figure out what you would like to do.”

“What?” Fenris turns, follows Anders’ glance, and frowns. “You said Kirkwall was not particularly safe.” Anders shrugs. “This…clinic…of yours, it is back down in… ‘Darktown’?” Anders nods. Fenris looks at him, his brow creasing as if he’s struggling with his own emotions. “I do not like the thought of you returning at this hour alone.”

“Fenris,” Anders laughs. “I’m a big grown-up mage who can take care of himself, I promise.”

Fenris looks immensely skeptical.

“I will walk with you,” he declares.

Anders bites back a quip about not being the kind of mage who needs a bodyguard, and says instead, “And you’re going to find your way back how, exactly?”

“Ah.” Fenris pauses, evidently not having thought of that.

“You’re welcome to stay with me, if you want,” Anders says, a small thrill going through him at the idea, though he tries to play it off as nonchalant. It’s a relief to think of keeping Fenris close, where he can take care of him, instead of leaving him alone. “While you’re learning your way around the city again.”

It seems to please Fenris as well, because he nods and says, “That is acceptable.”


	4. I Loved in Shades of Wrong

“You can take any of the cots,” Anders tells him. “My bed’s through here, so I’ll just be a shout away if you need me.” He motions at a door in the back wall of the clinic, which presumably leads to some kind of private sleeping area. “Actually…” Anders goes to a chest against one wall, near the shelves of medicine and potions. He rifles around and pulls out a couple of scratchy looking blankets, which he then presses into Fenris’s arms. “It gets kind of cold down here, so you might want these in addition to the blankets that are already out.”

Fenris nods, watching the healer-mage carefully. His awkward bustling seems to indicate sincerity – it is certainly not how Fenris has seen a mage ever act before – but he isn’t entirely sure he trusts it not to be an act. True, the Circles here are rumored to be terrible, but a mage uncertain and not domineering is…beyond odd. Fenris wants to trust the man, handsome as he is and kind as he seems, but he is not sure that is wise

Anders seems to be waiting for a response. “Ah,” Fenris clears his throat. “Thank you?”

He gets a warm smile in return. “You’re welcome. Don’t hesitate to wake me up if you need something, all right?”

Fenris nods, because he knows that is the correct response, but he has no intention of doing such a thing.

“Good. Well.” Anders wrings his hands together. “Good night, then.” He gives Fenris one last lingering glance and disappears.

Fenris stares after him and then shakes himself. Wise or no, he finds himself drawn to the man in a way he can’t entirely explain. Perhaps it’s the result of this history he cannot remember. He humphs and goes to make the cot nearest Anders’ door.

Fenris doesn’t remember ever wanting anyone aside from Danarius – his master’s favor was vast, but he had known without having to be told of the wrath that would have come down on him if Fenris had ever shown any indication that he was unsatisfied with Danarius’s attentions. To desire someone else still feels like a betrayal, and Fenris tries to reconcile an apparent wish for this Anders with the loyal pet of Master Danarius he has always conceived of himself to be.

He props his sword within reach and sheds his armor, stacking it neatly on the next cot over. 

And his master…dead by his own hand, flesh mottled and rotting, throat torn open, eyes clouded and unseeing. Fenris shudders. He notices a bloodstain on an inner joint of his vambrace, fairly fresh by the look of it, and touches it tentatively. If he killed Master Danarius within the last day, perhaps it is Danarius’s blood. Fenris sinks to his knees on the dirt floor, abruptly nauseous. He thinks for a moment he might lose the meager meal he and Anders ate not long ago, and puts his hands over his mouth, despairing.

He has done this, he has killed his master after abandoning him and running away, and Fenris doesn’t know which is worse: knowing what he has done, or not remembering the hatred that drove him to do it in the first place. He has become the proverbial dog that bites the hand that feeds it, and it sickens him. If he were to see his reflection in a mirror, Fenris isn’t sure he would recognize himself. More than who these friends he has found himself with are, he wonders who he is now. What has he become?

Fenris reaches up with shaking hands to strip off his tunic, down to his leggings, and picks up his sword. He pushes a few cots out of the way and settles into practice, spinning on silent bare feet, moving with this blade he has never seen before that fits his hand perfectly, whirling, shifting through his strokes until sweat drips down his back and from the tips of his hair and there’s nothing in his head but pleasant white noise, the strain in his muscles, the feel of his body and his weapon as an extension of his arm. Then he tucks a blanket around his shoulders and sinks to the ground with his back to Anders’ door, still gripping his sword.

***

In the morning, Fenris remains there, curled in on himself. He registers the cold somewhere in the back of his mind and clutches at the edges of his blanket. Quiet movement from within warns him that Anders is awake, but before Fenris can rouse himself to move, the door behind him opens and a foot connects solidly with his spine. Fenris grunts and startles into wakefulness, shooting to sit up. His blanket falls around his waist.

“Shit,” Anders mutters, his voice hoarse with sleep. He rubs his eyes and blinks down at the ground, eyes going wide when he sees Fenris there. “Fenris? Shit, I’m sorry, did I kick you?”

Fenris is aware the kicking was his own fault for blocking the walkway and not moving fast enough, but he doesn’t think Anders would approve of him saying so, so he merely shrugs.

Anders pushes tangled, unbound hair out of his face and looks between Fenris and the cots in the room with confusion. 

“Why are you on the floor?” he asks sleepily. 

“I…” Fenris isn’t sure which part of the truth Anders wants to hear. He is accustomed to watchfulness and part of him wanted to guard Anders while he slept, though he feels uncomfortable admitting that. He could simply say that he couldn’t fall asleep at first, but that seems like an inadequate explanation. “I am not accustomed to sleeping alone,” he says quietly, and then feels his ears heat at the confession. 

“Um,” Anders takes a breath.

“I guarded Danarius day and night,” Fenris hurries to add, and immediately regrets it for the way Anders’ eyes soften. 

“Oh,” the mage says. “Well, you’re – you’re – did you get any sleep at all?”

“Some,” Fenris says evasively.

“Well, that’s something.” Anders offers a hand. “I was just going to make some tea and see what I might have for breakfast.”

Fenris pulls himself to his feet with Anders’ help smoothly, then bends back down for his blanket. He catches the mage’s gaze lingering on his naked torso, but when Fenris meets his eyes, Anders looks away quickly, his cheeks reddening.

Fenris pads to the cot he did not use and folds the blanket, setting it on the end. He shrugs into his tunic.

Across the clinic, Anders heats a pot of water to boiling with his hands and then fixes two mugs of tea. He pulls out some stale bread and frowns when the rest of his cupboard comes up bare, then shrugs and breaks it in two. Fenris draws closer awkwardly, not sure what he’s supposed to be doing, and Anders holds out a mug and half the bread with an apologetic look.

“Sorry, I don’t have anything else. We’ll have to go shopping for more food.” Anders picks up his tea and blows on it, then mutters more to himself than Fenris. “I think I have a few coins to spare…”

Fenris studies him as he nibbles uncomplainingly on the bread. He is accustomed to a certain standard of living with Danarius, as his master was one of the most affluent magisters in the Imperium. It’s obvious Anders is not wealthy, although Fenris still finds this unusual, and the total lack of food in Anders’ home combined with the guilty expression on his face is very…curious. Fenris wants to ask about it, but he does not.

Anders sinks onto a cot and folds his long legs in front of him, then wedges his mug precariously between his legs and reaches up to comb his fingers through his hair and tie it back. Fenris swallows so quickly he nearly chokes. With an oversized white sleep shirt slipping off one shoulder and his eyes smudged with sleep, Anders toying with his hair is possibly the most erotic thing Fenris has ever seen. A shock of arousal sparks down his body, so swift and so strong he takes a staggering step towards the mage. Fenris pictures himself kissing along the line of Anders’ clavicle, licking up the side of his neck, taking his hair down again just to run his fingers through it, pushing Anders back against the cot, pinning him down with his body, and…

“Fenris?” Anders looks at him with concern and Fenris realizes he is growling softly. He shakes his head and turns his back to the infuriating, beautiful, ridiculous stranger, feeling an urge to adjust himself in his leggings and resisting it. But that just makes Anders slip off the cot again and come to stand behind him, touching his shoulder tentatively. “What is it?”

“Is it normal for this…this draw to you to be so strong for him? For – for me, I mean.” 

Anders sounds perplexed. “I don’t know what you mean, sweetheart.”

Turning, Fenris says, “I want…” but the sight of Anders so near to him, honey brown eyes warm and concerned on his face, stops him mid-thought and he just stares. Anders tilts his head, and Fenris looks at Anders’ lips and licks his own. “…you,” he finishes in a whisper.

Anders smiles.

“You can have whatever you want from me, Fenris.”

Fenris groans, taking a step back. 

“I don’t think you understand,” Fenris says. “This is not normal, I do not, I don’t want things. I want to please, I don’t want to take, I…” he shakes his head.

Anders considers him with that damningly soft gaze and then corrects, voice gentle, “You haven’t been allowed to want things, Fenris. It’s not the same as not wanting them at all.” He reaches out and takes Fenris’s mug from him, setting it on a shelf nearby. “And to answer your question, yes. In the purely physical sense, at the very least; I don’t claim to know everything on your mind, but we’ve been doing this dance, you and I, for long enough that I think I can say with certainty that you’re definitely attracted to me.”

Fenris rubs his upper arms and says, “I don’t know how he stands it, if it’s always like this.”

“You usually cope by pinning me against whatever hard surface is available,” Anders says wryly, his eyes crinkling around the edges with amusement.

The wording gives Fenris pause. _Fenris_ pinning the mage down? The brazenness of the idea is intoxicating, and suddenly his earlier fantasy doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

“I…” Fenris swallows, getting harder from the thought.

Anders pats his arm.

“And until you figure out exactly what it is you want from me again, there’s no rush.” Anders hands his mug back. “Your tea will go cold.”

Fenris watches him move away again with a pang. He swallows his frustration, ducks his head and drinks his tea. That much, at least, it’s clear he is supposed to do.

***

They go to the market in Lowtown to shop, and Anders asks a lot of questions about what Fenris would like. Fenris always gives a variation of the same ‘Whatever you think is best, Anders’ answer, which Anders accepts with infinite patience. But he keeps asking anyways, until Fenris gives him a disgruntled look, crosses his arms, and refuses to answer at all.

 _That_ seems to please Anders more than anything else, judging by the delighted grin on his face, and Fenris decides it is completely impossible to predict what this mage wants from him. Anders leaves him on the edge of the market while he finishes his shopping, and when he comes back with a bag of provisions, he tosses an apple at Fenris without explanation. Anders laughs at his perplexed expression.

“I thought you might still be hungry. They’re your favorite.” 

Fenris takes a bite and stills when he finds the crisp taste not only to his liking, but also achingly familiar, though he can’t ever remember having tried this particular type of green-gold apple in his life. He darts a glance at Anders’ face as he swallows. The mage is watching him intently, looking hopeful.

“Yes,” Fenris says slowly. “I believe you are right. Thank you.”

Anders smiles, and Fenris feels foolishly pleased for putting the expression there.

“I was hoping to open the clinic at least for a few hours today,” Anders says. “What would you like to do, Fenris? I can walk you back to your mansion and then come back for you later, if you want.”

Fenris wonders if he should take Anders up on that offer, if being in a place that was his, more or less, will help with his memories. But then he thinks of that decaying manor, with what are obviously his things and yet for which he feels nothing, and he suddenly does not want to be alone.

“May I stay with you?” he asks.

“Of course,” Anders assures him quickly, and Fenris thinks the question pleases him, though Anders does his best to hide it.


	5. The One That I Belong To

Back in the clinic, Anders lights the lantern and waves off Fenris’s offer of help. He sets about a variety of small chores - cleaning, organizing - until a few patients trickle in. 

Fenris retreats to a corner where he will be out of the mage’s way, sitting on a crate and propping his sword nearby. It is deeply uncomfortable to not be assigned a task to do, but Fenris knows better than to question Anders on the matter. The patients who arrive are the poorest denizens of Darktown, people for whom the best healing would probably be fresh air and more food than they are getting, and Fenris watches Anders heal coughs and minor scrapes and aches and then proceed to pass out a little of the food they just bought to everyone who comes in.

One frail old woman catches Anders’ sleeve, only to break into a coughing fit that doesn’t stop until Anders guides her to a cot and puts his hands on her chest and back to heal the inflammation. When she can speak again, she says,

“Evangeline said there were templars prowling around her fire again last night, Anders.”

Anders moves away to fetch a cup of water and presses it into her hand. 

“I heard, Irene. Just conducting regular raids now, aren’t they?” There’s a flash of anger in his eyes and then his face gets drawn and weary. He sighs. Irene places her hand on his arm again and looks into his face wordlessly. “Don’t you worry about me,” Anders says, patting her wrinkled hand gently. “They won’t silence _me_.” He gives her a sad smile. 

It goes on like this for some time, each new arrival reporting on some new movement of the templars, from neighbors who have been taken in for questioning and never returned, to Darktown residents harassed. Anders assures each one of his wellbeing, inquires after their families, passes them food. The shadows under his eyes get darker and the lines in his forehead deeper as the minutes pass, but his patience doesn’t flag.

Unnoticed in his corner, Fenris ponders this. If Anders wishes him to be guided by his own desires, and what he finds himself wanting is to protect Anders, surely the mage cannot object? Fenris is a warrior, trained to guard and defend. It is what he knows, though it seems here the mage he wishes to protect must be guarded against the more powerful, whereas Danarius feared only his equals and assassins in the dark. 

He stands from his self-imposed hours of stillness and stretches. Anders meets his eyes from across the clinic and smiles.

Fenris slides his sword back into its sheath and grunts. His readiness to substitute Anders for his master is distressing. It is disloyal. And yet, Fenris finds the urge difficult to resist. 

Prowling over to the mage’s desk, where he can more easily see the exit, Fenris leans a hip against the side and settles in to watch more comfortably. He knocks over some papers in the process and scowls, bending to pick them all and stack them neatly again. They appear to be identical, notices of some kind written in a neat, painstaking hand that is easily read. Anders’ manifesto on mage rights, no doubt. Fenris resists the urge to roll his eyes as he sets them back on the desk.

He stretches his arms out in front of him and then behind his head and moves to a better vantage point by a pillar, where he can watch both Anders and the door and still not be seen right away by anyone coming in. Anders gives him an odd look as the patient he is talking to stops speaking to stare, but there’s still that fondness in his eyes. He smiles at Fenris again and turns back to the man he is treating.

Fenris swears under his breath. Stupid, stupid, how much pleasure it gives him to see a smile on Anders’ face. 

Ten minutes later, he jerks abruptly and hurries back to the desk. He didn’t actually _read_ any of the papers. How had he known they were Anders’ manifesto? The mage has said nothing about a manifesto. He picks one up and scans it quickly.

 

_Andraste suffered at the hands of Magisters. Thus, she feared the influence of magic. But if the Maker blamed magic for the Magisters’ actions in the Black City, why would he still gift us with it?_

_The Oppression of mages stems from the Fears of men, not the will of the Maker._

_These Truths cannot be denied: that mages are people, gifted with magic by the Maker’s will; that as such, they have the right to the same Freedoms as ordinary men and women – the Right to Live, the Right to be Free, and the Right to Choose their own lives for themselves._

_When these freedoms were infringed upon by the Magisters of old, Andraste herself took up her blade against them. So too must we fight back against the abuses of mages at the hands of the Chantry, as is our Right and our Duty in the face of such Despotism, for if any of us are not free, it is an Injustice against us all_

 

Fenris lowers the page slowly, trying to piece together what he knows. He understands the Southern Circles to be more like prisons, and if Anders’ patients are to be believed, their templars hunt for mages incessantly. It makes him uneasy to think of Anders in danger, but the thought of any who would be a magister or slave master locked away here… that is somehow comforting.

 _Andraste suffered at the hands of Magisters_ , Anders’ manifesto says. And what is the enslavement of entire groups of people, the murders, the slaves drained of blood so their masters may be more powerful, the rampant corruption throughout Tevinter if not suffering? He writes about freedom and life and choice, like these are rights _everyone_ is owed, the slaves as well as the magisters, the mages as well as ordinary people, and it’s a heretical idea, so many sent to the Games or beaten into submission for less, and yet the appeal of it, the hope – Fenris can see now why some would fight back against an empire they have no prayer of defeating, all for an ideal. The words paint a picture of things Fenris has never thought to need. 

Fenris knows nothing but a life as Danarius’s prize. He has no past beyond his master, only memories of being birthed in agony. He remembers merciless hands cutting into him, laying lyrium beneath his skin, his blood dripping into buckets to fuel the magic that Danarius needed for the procedure. The first clear image he can see is Danarius’s face, his master praising him, saying, ‘My little wolf, my pet, how well you have done.’ And those hazy hands hurting, hurting, always hurting him, they are Danarius’s hands, the hands that were always cool on his marred body when Danarius touched him. He had welcomed Danarius’s touch, for the way it marked him as valuable to his master, the way the other slaves had averted their gaze with more than the usual deference, as if they were jealous of the preference Danarius showed to him. But there was always pain, pain Fenris had swallowed, pain Fenris had ignored. For the first time, he wonders if Danarius had ever cared for him, or if he had always been nothing more than a possession, a _thing_ intended simply to set his master above the other magisters.

‘You have always deserved better,’ Anders had said.

“Are you reading my manifesto?” Anders asks, surprise and amusement in his voice, and Fenris startles at the mage’s sudden appearance at his elbow. The parchment crumples in his clenched gauntlet.

“Fasta vass,” Fenris hisses. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, but you were pretty absorbed there,” Anders chuckles. “I have to admit, I’m surprised – usually you won’t touch the thing with a ten-foot pole, and…” Anders’ voice trails off when Fenris doesn’t meet his gaze. He cups Fenris’ cheek. “Fenris, you’re trembling.”

He is, though he hadn’t noticed. Fenris feels nauseated, unsteady on his feet. The room swims around the edges of his vision. He doesn’t speak, just lets the manifesto fall from numb fingers, steps forward, and buries his face in Anders’ chest.

Anders wraps his arms around him without hesitation.

“Hey, hey,” he whispers. “You’re all right, sweetheart. I’m right here. Not going anywhere. I’ve got you.” 

Fenris doesn’t know what he’s doing, knows only the urge to burrow into Anders’ arms and not let go. Around him, he thinks he hears Anders dismissing the rest of his patients and someone shutting the door, and he goes where Anders guides them until he’s laid down somewhere. Anders keeps up a steady murmur of soothing nonsense and undresses him carefully, with gentle hands that don’t hurt when they touch him, and when Fenris is down to his tunic and leggings Anders lays down and spoons in behind him, pulling a warm blanket over them both.

The contrast between Anders’ care and Danarius’s demands only serves to drive in the point more strongly. Fenris rolls over and presses his face into Anders’ neck, breathing in and out deliberately as he does to center himself before a fight. They must be in Anders’ bed, because everything around them – pillow, blanket, the body pressed against him – it all smells like the mage: warm, strong soap and sweat and hints of elfroot. Anders rubs his back and holds him close.

“He used me,” Fenris says at last, his voice small.

Anders stills. He presses a kiss to the top of Fenris’s head. 

“I know, love.”

“I do not know how I failed to see it.”

Anders takes his face between his hands and says firmly, “It’s not your fault, Fenris.”

Fenris squeezes his eyes shut and nods. He tucks his head under Anders’ chin and falls quiet again, listens to the sound of the mage’s heart beating, feels the rise and fall of Anders’ chest as he breathes.

It feels right, and safe, and Fenris doesn’t think they have ever done this before. Not like this. Just…holding each other. He can remember desire, remember the title of some words on a piece of parchment, but he can’t remember any of the rest, any of what brought them here. It makes him angry suddenly, the scope of what he knows in the face of all he cannot remember.

“He took this too,” Fenris says. “What – what we had together.”

“No,” Anders says immediately, and the strength of his rebuttal surprises him. 

When Fenris pulls back to look at him, Anders’s eyes gleam burnished gold in the shadows, earnest, intense. He closes his fingers on Fenris’s chin and kisses him, deep enough to claim, long enough to push thoughts of Danarius out of Fenris’s head, because Danarius never kissed him like this, like he was drowning and Fenris was the only thing that could keep him above the water’s pull, like there’s nothing in the entire world but the two of them, bodies pressed tight, chest to chest, in the dark. Every breath Fenris takes is Anders, the smell of his unwashed hair in his nose and the taste of him in his mouth, and Fenris rocks closer, groin pressing against Anders’ groin, grabs a fistful of Anders’ hair to steady himself, to hold on to this, this, arcing between them, heat and need, Anders’ mouth burning on his, burning away doubt and fear and leaving only quiet, his pulse in his ears, his cock aching in his leggings.

“He didn’t take this,” Anders whispers when they part, brushing Fenris’s lips with the pads of his fingers. 

Fenris opens his mouth and touches his tongue to those fingers. Anders groans. 

“I don’t remember,” Fenris says. “What we did before. But the way I wanted you, I still feel that, and it frightens me, because I don’t remember where it comes from. I just remember this.” He puts a hand over Anders’ heart, traces meaningless shapes into the worn fabric of his shirt. He whispers, “I wanted to be with you. That’s what I meant. I can…feel it.”

“Fenris…” Anders’ voice breaks, his face crumpling. 

“Tell me,” Fenris murmurs, when it’s clear Anders is struggling to keep something back, something he feels he _shouldn’t_ say, but wants to. He strokes Anders’ hair, wanting all of Anders’ secrets, wanting to drag his teeth along the line of Anders’ collarbone, wanting a mage’s touch in a way he doesn’t remember ever having done before, except he must have, because this ache doesn’t feel new. It feels rediscovered.

Anders sniffs, nudging his forehead against Fenris’s. 

Anders says, “You don’t owe me anything.”

“ _Anders._ ” Fenris tugs on his hair and Anders’ breath hitches, his eyes darkening with arousal.

“I’ve loved you for years,” Anders whispers. “I thought for sure you’d be my last. I’d go to my grave still hopelessly in love with you, and you never having wanted more from me than the occasional fuck.”

Fenris growls. He rolls them so he’s on top, thighs braced against Anders’ hips, hands pressing Anders’ shoulders into the thin mattress. 

“I want…” He pauses, trying to understand the surging emotions without source inside of him, and then, sure of at least this much, says simply, “Much more than that.” He looks down at Anders beneath him, his hair fanned out against the pillow and his eyes dark. 

Anders puts his hands on Fenris’s waist.

“What do you want, love?”

Fenris bends and licks his collarbone.

“Oh,” Anders says breathlessly, hips grinding up against Fenris’s ass. “We can, you can definitely have that.”

Fenris sucks at his neck, enjoying the way Anders squirms beneath him.

“Whatever I want, you said.” Fenris pulls back and studies him, resting his hands on Anders’ chest. “Did you…mean that?”

“Yes,” Anders says without hesitation. “But if one of us doesn’t want to do something, all we have to do is say so, hm?”

Fenris nods carefully. He kisses Anders gently, pleased when Anders responds in kind, the kiss turning to another, and another, slow, a banked fire, Anders’ hands brushing his back, Fenris bracing an arm next to Anders’ head and tracing his face languidly, until the soft touches aren’t enough anymore. Anders rolls his hips, seeking more friction, and whines when Fenris shifts forward enough to not give him any.

Fenris smiles. He nips Anders’ lips and straightens, undoing the ties of Anders’ shirt to pull it off of him. Anders lifts his arms and Fenris drops it to the side, off the bed. He kisses his way down Anders’ chest, rubbing his nose against his chest hair, until he reaches Anders’ waistband. Anders lifts his hips hopefully, his eyes rapt on Fenris’s face, open and wanting, and Fenris shivers at the devotion there.

He traces the hard line of Anders’ cock through his trousers and says, watching his hand, “Fuck me.”

“What?” Anders half-laughs and then groans as Fenris palms him. “Fenris, wait, we don’t…” he catches Fenris’s hand and tilts his head to give him a quizzical look. “That’s usually not how we do things.” At the expression on Fenris’s face, he hurries to add, “Not that we can’t, it’s just…you are usually the one doing the fucking. Are you sure you want…me?”

Fenris hesitates, because Anders beneath him is probably the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen. But the thought of Anders inside of him, holding him again like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like Fenris belongs in his arms…he finds that he wants that.

“I want you,” he affirms, ducking his head with a squirmy kind of shyness, suddenly afraid Anders will say no.

Anders pulls him down with a hand on the nape of his neck and nuzzles him, kisses him. 

“You have me,” Anders whispers.

Anders shifts Fenris to the side and rolls off the bed, flicking a wisp into being for light and rummaging through a pack that’s hiding in a corner until he finds what he’s looking for with a triumphant noise. He shimmies out of his smalls and trousers before climbing back into the bed.

There, Anders undresses him slowly, worships Fenris’s body with mouth and hands. He knows all the places that make Fenris shudder with want, and his attention to Fenris’s pleasure instead of his own is enough to make Fenris want to weep, enough to make him more certain than ever that this is right, despite his fear and the things he cannot remember. He clings to Anders’ shoulders as Anders fucks him open with slick fingers, scores marks into Anders’ skin with his nails, and Anders bends him in half to kiss him and swallow his gasps with his mouth. 

“Anders, please,” Fenris begs, his legs falling open as Anders pulls back. Anders pulls his fingers out of Fenris’s body and kisses the inside of a thigh.

“You’re sure about this, love?”

“Venhedis,” Fenris swears, “Festis bei umo canavarum, Anders, kaffas.”

Anders shivers as his name comes out of Fenris’s mouth more accented than usual.

“Maker, if I’d known how sexy you were growling in Tevene, I’d have gotten you to do that years ago.”

“Anders.” Fenris squirms, reaching for him. “Stop teasing.” He runs a hand up Anders’ neck and flicks his ear in irritation.

“Ow.” Anders laughs. Fenris hooks his calves around the back of Anders’ thighs and nudges him closer. Anders falls forward and kisses him once more, and Fenris feels the head of Anders’ cock press inside him. He goes still, and Anders reaches for his hand, tangles their fingers together on the bed. Fenris’s heart is in his mouth, but it’s not from Anders’ cock steadily filling him, not from the stretch or the burn of it, though Anders’ slow pace is set to drive him crazy and Fenris wants more, faster, harder. It’s Anders’ hand in his, holding on, steadying him.

Fenris wraps his legs around Anders’ waist as Anders slides inside him and finally, finally, Anders starts to move, in and out, in and out, still too slow for Fenris but it’s good, it’s so much better than any sex Fenris can remember. Anders shifts until he finds just the right angle so he hits Fenris’s prostate on each thrust, and he’s holding Fenris’s _hand_. He moves his other hand from Fenris’s hip and wraps his fist around Fenris’s cock, and then this is what Fenris wanted, to be filled, surrounded, hear Anders pant, watch him stare at Fenris as if he’s the most wonderful thing he has ever seen and might disappear if Anders so much as breaks eye contact. Fenris murmurs Anders’ name and Anders smiles at him, warm and open and happy, and his fingers tighten around Fenris’s hand and Fenris thinks, _We’ve been here before_ – Anders smiling, holding his hand, driving him to orgasm, and he smells rotten fish and foundry stench, feels stone at his back and Anders’ fingers tangled in his. Fenris gasps, realizes he doesn’t want Anders on his knees, he wants to throw himself to the street because he wants Anders in his arms, wants Anders, wants him, wants to – to belong to him, to have him, wants to be…

“Yours,” Fenris groans.

Anders says, “Only if I get to be yours first, sweetheart,” but another Anders says, “What the fuck. Fuck, Fenris, you can’t just say things like that. Fuck. Sweetheart, I…”

And Fenris says, “You are talking already,” because that’s what another him had said, in an alley, but he doesn’t remember why. 

“What?” Now-Anders laughs a little, rocking his hips. “Well, that’s what happens when we do it this way, love, you don’t get to shut me up.”

Of course, yes, Fenris remembers he had said, “You wonder why we always end up with my cock in your mouth,” and he remembers what Anders looked like, pink lips stretched wide around him, eyes too-warm, too-intent on Fenris’s face. The memories start coming faster, Anders sucking his cock in an alley three over from the one they’d been in the day he’d killed Danarius, Anders on his knees on the rug before Fenris’ fire, Anders on his knees in his clinic, Anders bent over his desk begging after Fenris had casually swiped the entire stack of manifesto notices onto the floor, Anders kissing his way up Fenris’s body in Fenris’s bed and tracing his lyrium lines with hands that oozed gentle healing magic even when he wasn’t actively casting, hands that never hurt.

“Fenris? Fenris! Look at me!” Anders cries, hovering over him, grabbing at Fenris’s face, worry clear in his warm gold eyes, and Fenris inhales sharply, trying to calm the wild gasping he realizes he’s been doing. Relief floods Anders’ eyes, and Fenris is sure he had just remembered something about those eyes looking at him with crinkles around the corners from Anders smiling too much, but maybe he had imagined that, because he can’t draw the image to mind again, and as he tries to reach for all the memories he _knows_ he just got back, they swirl away, draining through his fumbling fingers like water, and Fenris cries out.

“No, no, no,” he shakes his head, thrashing under Anders’ hands. Anders’ hand. He had been holding his hand, and there was something – something about that, that was important, he has to…

Fenris ignores Anders’ frenzied attempts to soothe him and grabs Anders’ wrist, tugging at his hand until their fingers are laced together again and he eases, because that is right, somehow, they should be holding hands, should be touching, Fenris needs him, he needs Anders to…

“Don’t stop,” Fenris pants, grabbing a fistful of Anders’ hair to force him to look at him, clamping his legs down on Anders’ waist, grinding back down against Anders’ hips, but Anders has gone limp and pulled out. “I – I need…”

Anders tries to stop him. “No, Fenris. Love, you don’t. You don’t have to…”

“Anders!” Fenris barks, desperate, because he can almost – just – see it again, there was…something that smelled and a bad taste in his mouth and yet Fenris had laughed because Danarius was dead and he was free, and Anders had, Anders had held his hand, and that had been important, that had meant something. Fenris needs to know what. He blinks back the blurry tears in his eyes and says, “You – you were holding my hand. Before. I…” He groans, pressing the heel of his free hand into his eyes. “Just fuck me, please, please, it’s going away, and I was…I was yours, I want to be…Anders, _please_.”

“I was what? Fenris, sweetheart, you’re not making any sense.” Anders tries to be reasonable, but Fenris grips his hand hard enough to bruise and holds it up and growls,

“You _held_ my _hand_. Just one other time. I remembered, but now it’s gone. Bring it back, Anders, please, I don’t know what else to do, I can’t forget _again_ , please.”

Something about the anguish in his voice and his face seems to get through this time, because Anders stares at their joined hands and inhales sharply.

“Oh. _Oh_.” Anders wraps his other arm around Fenris’s waist and rolls so they’re both on their sides and he can hold Fenris close. He smooths Fenris’ hair behind his ear. “I held your hand when I sucked you off right after you killed Danarius, right? You remember that – you couldn’t stay in The Hanged Man, so I followed you out, and I think you might have lost your dinner in the gutter right before I got out there, and you were spouting the usual ‘rawr I’m Fenris I hate all mages’ shit, but Danarius was _dead_ , and I knew you wouldn’t hurt me, not really. And mostly I didn’t want you to have to be alone, I wanted to…take care of you.”

Fenris quiets as Anders speaks. He closes his eyes, trying to picture it, trying to remember, and he almost can, Anders smug in the moonlight, offering himself up.

“Because I’ve been madly in love with you for ages, and in completely masochistic fashion figured I’d just keep tripping along after you for sex even if I thought it would never lead to anything else, because I’d rather at least have that than nothing at all.”

“Anders…” Fenris murmurs, pained, and Anders brushes his fingers against his cheek.

“So there we were, me coaxing some good feeling out of you until you were actually being happy about being free instead of brooding about it, and then I don’t know, I must have looked too sappy, because you were just…staring at me, and then you said…you said you were mine.”

“Yours,” Fenris echoes, closing his eyes. He can hear himself say it, again. _I am yours_.

“Yeah,” Anders says, his cock stirring back to life against Fenris’s hip.

“Tell me more,” Fenris demands. He wraps his fingers around Anders’ cock and strokes him.

“Ah.” Anders inhales. “We – we didn’t do anything about what you said that night, but you invited me home and asked me to spend the night, which wasn’t something we’d done purposely before.” He moans quietly as Fenris brings him back to full hardness and guides his cock back to his ass.

“Don’t stop,” Fenris murmurs, sinking down on him again. “What – what about before that? What else did we do?”

Anders lifts Fenris’s thigh and settles it over his hip and then fucks him slowly. He tells Fenris about the first time they’d had sex, how Fenris had caught Anders staring at him out on the Wounded Coast while he’d washed up, and when they were trapped in a tent together later listening to Isabela and Hawke and Merrill all fuck, and not quietly, Fenris practically jumped him when Anders had looked at him hungrily again. 

“Maker, it was hot,” Anders said. “You put your…”

“My hand over your mouth, or otherwise Isabela would have heard you moaning like a wanton whore and we’d have never heard the end of it, no matter what kind of sounds were coming out of their tent,” Fenris finishes.

Anders stares at him for a beat and then smiles slowly. “Yes, that, exactly.”

“More,” Fenris says, guiding Anders’ hand to his cock.

Anders fucks into him and strokes him and tells him stories about other times they fucked until Fenris is whimpering, but still begging for more, because he can remember each story that Anders tells, and the memories stay, this time, made solid somehow by Anders’ words and his touch. 

And when he can’t hang on any longer and he clenches around Anders’ cock and comes over Anders’ hand, his eyes close and he sees everything – Anso and meeting up with Hawke and Danarius already being gone, settling into his mansion, his initial ill-advised attraction to Hawke herself until she told him she only liked women, and then he and Anders, circling closer and closer to each other, Fenris always wanting more from him but being afraid, afraid of giving himself, of _losing_ himself, to another mage, until he’d snapped Danarius’s spine and realized he was truly free, and maybe freedom meant choosing which people to let in, not keeping all of them out.

Anders comes not long after he does, and Fenris sprawls over Anders’ chest, still holding his hand, afraid he might lose it all again if he lets go.

“Fenris?” Anders finally asks, flexing his fingers in Fenris’s iron grip.

“I remembered,” Fenris says, laying his cheek over Anders’ heart.

“How much?” Anders asks, hope warring with fear in his voice.

“Everything.”

Anders threads his fingers in Fenris’s hair and pulls him up to kiss him sloppily, and Fenris can feel the damp of Anders’ tears on his cheek when they part.

“I love you,” Anders groans. “Fenris, Maker, I love you, please…”

And Anders doesn’t even say what he’s asking for, but Fenris hears it anyways. _Stay. Stay with me this time._

Fenris smiles, brings Anders’ hand to his mouth to kiss the back of it. “I am yours.”


End file.
